Justice League (20??)

Not surprisingly, it appears WB are pushing for Justice League film.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118055082

Quote :

While Disney and Marvel were busy shooting "The Avengers" last year, Warner Brothers quietly began getting its own all-star superhero pic back on track, tapping "Gangster Squad" scribe Will Beall to write "Justice League," based on the WB-controlled stable of DC Comics superheroes.

Warner Bros. had no comment on the top-secret hire, which, due to its timing, was more in anticipation of -- rather than a reaction to -- the box office success of "The Avengers."

Beall has yet to turn in his "Justice League" script, though he has become a favorite scribe of Warners. He's writing the studio's "Lethal Weapon" reboot and its remake of "Logan's Run," which is expected to reteam "Gangster Squad" thesp Ryan Gosling with his "Drive" director Nicolas Winding Refn. Warners will release "Gangster Squad" on Sept. 7.

Warners originally tried to mount a "Justice League" movie several years ago, with George Miller directing from a script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney. That iteration was set to star Adam Brody as the Flash, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman and then-newcomer Armie Hammer as Batman. Back in January 2008, the studio cited a lack of tax breaks as the main reason it pulled the plug on the project, which also needed a rewrite that wasn't possible because of the writers' strike.

DC Comics is a vital component of Warner Bros.' intellectual property, as "Green Lantern" scribes Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green were tapped to write "The Flash" for director Greg Berlanti, while another "Green Lantern" scribe, Michael Goldenberg, was hired to write "Wonder Woman." Additionally, Brad Peyton is working on a new draft of "Lobo," while John Kamps and David Koepp are developing "Spy vs. Spy" as a potential directing vehicle for Ron Howard. WB also developed the "Aquaman" property several years ago.

Beall is repped by CAA and Management 360.

Wouldn't be surprised to see this rushed and half-assed to capitalize off the success of The Avengers, not that I'm particularly expecting it to be good anyway.

Directed by Brett Ratner
Written by Akiva Goldsman

Starring

The Situation as Superman
Lil' Wayne as Batman
Blake Lively as Wonder Woman

To be fair, Akiva Goldsman has done some good work.

It's smart of Warner Bros to get the Green Lantern writers for their Flash and Wonder Woman films. I'm sure they'll turn out great.

DC Entertainment has been doing an incredible job with their animated features I think, I wish WB would just stand aside and let those people get a crack at a live action feature. But no, they seem to very narrow minded about that.

Anyone remember the last time they tried to get this off the ground? The mo-cap CGI George Miller version NO ONE WANTED?

Yeah, it was very odd of them to go for that so soon after BATMAN BEGINS and SUPERMAN RETURNS came out I didn't think it was a good idea, especially with a whole different cast.

Now? I wouldn't mind JLA having its own unique cast. But I'm not crazy about mo-cap CGI being used for a JLA movie.

I want a unique cast for JLA. Unique director, unique everything.

Christ, Val must be ordering the same sub sandwiches as Shatner.

Control wrote:

Val Kilmer should have a part in JUSTICE LEAGUE. He can play the Justice League.

I don't think this movie is gonna happen.

The brilliance of Marvel's move was the slow build to Avengers -- introducing all the characters in their own movies and truly building the world so the idea of the team film wasn't ridiculous. It may have hampered those solo films to some degree or another but it paid off, so that when we were asked to see a film that teamed a man out of time super solider, a billionaire industrialist in powered armor, a Norse God from another world, a green monstrous Id unleashed, a beautiful Russian assassin and a dude with a bow and arrow we weren't totally perplexed and aggravated.

But the DC movies have taken a totally non-integrated approach, not a cohesive movie universe but a seperated and individual one to each hero. Which works well for the DC heroes but not well for a Justice League movie. That's a team that includes an godlike alien from another world, an Amazonian golem, a billionaire vigilante, the fastest man alive, an intergalactic beat cop, the King of Atlantis and a goddamn shapeshifting Martian. Can you really explain and cause suspension of disbelief for all those concepts at the same time in one movie??

The Marvel universe, in the comics, has the advantage that it was designed to work together from the start. From the beginning Stan Lee knew as he created each new character that they existed in the same world. (Spider-Man crosses over with the Fantastic Four in the first issue, for cryin' out loud!) It also helps that Stan Lee created all those characters.

The DC universe exists because all those characters are owned by the same company and it was good marketing to have them cross-over and team up, but they don't naturally blend as well as the Marvel guys -- it takes far more work to do it well, to do it believably. I mean, Gotham City is across the bay from Metropolis and you're telling me Batman is still fighting street crime in a world with Superman??

So a Justice League movie, particularly if it's going to exist seperately from or without solo movies, is a Sisyphean task in my estimation. Even the cartoon worked because Batman and Superman had their own shows which had already crossed-over and established relationships and Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern had been introduced in Superman episodes as guest stars.

You can't jump in with Justice League, just like you could never jump in with Avengers. It's too much for an audience to handle. Even Avengers needed two and a half hours to handle all the characters, and there were less members than the seven the JLA has.

In many ways they'd be better doing the reverse with watchmen and generating a series of solo or duo films with those characters.

As stated Justice League without a proper seed and build strategy is just a recipe for disaster.

DC's biggest problem is Superman, although Marvel could find Hulk in a similar place very soon.

A friend of a friend of a friend told Mark Millar that the script is "dark and mature."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/GraphicCity/news/?a=61074

Sounds like this is going to be the antithesis of The Avengers.

Jack Wade wrote:

A friend of a friend of a friend told Mark Millar that the script is "dark and mature."

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/GraphicCity/news/?a=61074

Sounds like this is going to be the antithesis of The Avengers.

I'm all in favour of variety so thats no bad thing, and its how I tend to see Marvel and DC differing in general these days...the problem being that, given the source and genre, 'dark and mature' is a much more difficult target to hit and a miss often results in something that turns it into quite the opposite.

"Dark and mature"

I hope they find some HOT actresses to play Hawk Girl, Zatanna, Black Canary, Vixen, Gypsy, Fire, Ice, Huntress, Hawkwoman, Maxima, and Wonder Woman and many others.

Better yet, make a Justice League movie with NO Male superheroes.

Only Hot Chicks!!

Holllywood Studio Executives can make more money from their comics to movie adaptations if they think the way I do but unfortunately, they don't because they are too dumb!

!!!!!!!!

Hollywood executives don't need to think like that, because there are already pornographers who do, j7.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Hollywood executives don't need to think like that, because there are already pornographers who do, j7.

I didn't see any Porn in The Avengers and The Dark Knight films.

:x

Probably because you didn't get the Avengers or Batman XXX parody DVDs?

I tried watching GREEN LANTERN awhile ago and the thing that turned me off was how serious it took itself. It came off very somber and if that's what WB wants to do with JLA then count me out. I fear MOS will take the same path.

THOR is probably the best way you could handle the DC films, but WB seems to be in love with Nolan's take on Batman to much.

Get Edgar Wright to do it and make it big and light and colorful.

Thing is, Nolan's take on Batman works for Batman. This is what I mean when I say the DC Universe isn't very integrated. Even with all the various stories and personages in Marvel, there's a cohesive style to those characters and storytelling to allow them to interact, which the movies have emulated. Some have criticised this as creating a "bland" style to the films, but it has allowed them to cross-over and interact easily, which is better for Marvel's business plan. Meanwhile, in DC, the best Batman movie has a dark, gothic, gritty, mysterioso, pulp style, whereas the best Superman movie should be Norman Rockwell Americana comic strip action adventure excitement, and the best Green Lantern movie something like a mix of Star Wars and the Lethal Weapon movies and overall they don't mix very well.

The only benefit of a backwards approach, doing the team movie first, is you can introduce audiences to DC characters and elements that maybe can't hold their own movies successfully -- I'm thinking Aquaman and Martian Manhunter (hell, Martian Manhunter can't even hold his own comic series successfully).

On the whole, I think they have the same big problem now that they did back in 2008, which is Nolan's Batman and now Nolan (and Snyder's) Superman. You can't put conflicting versions of the same hero in live action on the screen at once, and Nolan's Batman is way too down to earth and confined into the three stories Nolan has told with him to exist in the Justice League. Even with that series ending, Nolan's take on that character is going to inform and influence public perception of Batman for a long time, much as Burton's take did and the TV show did in years previous.

Hell, it's been thirty years and the main challenge facing MAN OF STEEL is still whether it can break free of the iconography of the (flawed) Donner-Salkind-Reeves interpretation of Superman, which has hung over every subsequent live action attempt.

And DC is in the poor position now that any Justice League movie they do will look like a rip-off of AVENGERS. Which it will be. Marvel earned AVENGERS, they did the work, they played all those cards and took those risks and got to make that movie, and have that success, as a result. DC wants the success without the work, essentially.

Which is funny because in the comics, the Justice League came first. The success of the Justice League comic is what got Marvel doing superhero comics in the first place, to try to replicate that success with Fantastic Four. But in this case Marvel is the innovator.

PS. Anyone else notice the picture of the Black Canary cosplayer j7 posted up there looks prepubescent?

That's seriously gross.